Before any investment, understand the product and learn to handle it. How will you experience it? You won’t be allowed to handle the antique ceramics in a museum. In London, there are renowned auction houses where you can take up this opportunity to feel the thousand years old Chinese porcelain in the hand. You can also guess the weight, check the intricate painting closely, and how the timeless antique ceramic should feel touching like.

How can you evaluate the value or the authenticity of an antique item without building some basic knowledge on it? Reading books or magazines? Yes, that somehow works; but not always! If you are a novice in the field, then you may not judge the historical significance or the sentiments attached to the age-old Chinese ceramics. Reference books can give you the structural idea, but try to participate in some brainstorming sessions with the porcelain specialists and clarify any questions that help you constructing matter-of-fact ideas on Chinese porcelain.

Shapes and proportions vary with the dynasty. Only by paying attention to a certain shape, you can detect in which dynasty it was prevalent in use. The shape of the ceramics has been evolved by ages. For example, Double phoenix vases were used in the Yuan Dynasty. Moon flasks were into real-life usage during the Ming dynasty, the double gourd-shaped was inspired by the gourd plant in Song Dynasty, and Pear-shaped porcelains had its real-life use mainly in temples in the Tang dynasty. Chinese ceramics are also famous for beautiful proportions dispensed evenly through the basement, neck, and mouth.

On the other hands, you are not supposed to find these similar kinds of flaws in an 18th-century period of Chinese ceramic. During that period, the firing techniques have been refined. Around fifteen years ago, only period ceramics and mint-condition marks have been accepted. However, collectors now are also giving value to the Chinese porcelains that have been polished and have hairline cracks.

 

1.      Look underneath for authenticity and beware of forgery

 

The way the base of porcelain was finished and glazed evolved from one dynasty to the next. This can help in the authenticating process as forgers don’t always get it right. Most of the time, they cannot manage to acquire original pieces to copy and rely only on the photographs in catalogs in the auction. These images hardly include the base or underneath side of the porcelain.